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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, carrots, onions, cloves, mace, butter, milk, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Clove and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,873 recipes mention both. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan and add sliced carrots and onions; fry for a few minutes.

  2. Add 8 cups of water, sliced tomatoes, cloves, mace, salt, and pepper; boil for 45 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture and bring the liquid back to a boil.

Thicken and serve

  1. Mix flour with milk and add to the soup; stir until it boils.

  2. Place cream in a hot tureen and slowly add the soup, ensuring the cream does not boil.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavour and acidity of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour from the sautéed vegetables.
Flour
Thickens the milk and soup so it has a smooth, body-rich texture.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the tomato's sharpness.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Onions
Build a sweet, savoury base through gentle frying.

The step that matters

Adding the soup to the cream. Cream can curdle or separate when it gets too hot or meets acid suddenly. Adding the soup slowly to warm cream, without letting it boil, keeps the texture smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sauce, carrot, butter, milk, onion, flour):

  1. Celerybetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Capersbetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sauce, carrot, butter, milk, onion, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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